There is a lot of information here, and I want to thank everyone for his or her input. It is good to see that everyone is open an honest with their concerns and I will try to emulate that to the best of my ability.
I don?t want to lead anyone on with empty promises. So, I think I should explain what I can and can?t do.
I think some of the issues that have been raised could be cleared up with an explanation of how a vehicle that has a common issue is found, researched, and resolved. If these steps are not followed, we could converse until our fingers fall off, get upset in the process, and be nowhere in the end. You have to follow a very strict procedure to eliminate the possibility of anomalies. This process is what is followed when a tech service bulletin is issued on a vehicle. When you take your vehicle in for a warranty claim at the dealer the problem and resolution is recorded. If the dealer has no reasonable resolution the contact the tech hotline. The tech hotline is an important component because they can get resolution to highly unique situations as well as recording the number of occurrences. If there is a consistency that shows up with the problem and resolution, it is passed then on to engineers to find root cause. The root cause of any particular problem could be anything from unique environmental conditions to, customer specific use, manufacturing, etc. Once a root cause is established a resolution needs to be made. The resolution could also be a number of things, such as anything from customer or tech education to a newly designed part. As you can see this is a lengthy process but it is necessary. If you concentrate on an issue that is nothing more than a strangely unique situation, you could easily be missing a real issue.
Lets start with the hard stuff first. It appears that the transmission seems to be the most common mentioned item. That makes sense, personally I think that it is the hardest working, most punished, part of the vehicle. Here is the honest part. The MTX 75 is overall a good transmission and has had very few complaints. That doesn?t mean I?m saying you each individually don?t have issues, or the fact that you may have common issues. That?s why I need information from anyone with a service concern. The things I need are VIN, how many visits, where those visits were, what was done at each visit, and a detailed description of what that issue is. There are obviously a number of you so I will also need your patience as well. Some of you are quite correct that I am not going to be able to single handedly convince Ford to give you new heavier duty transmissions, but maybe I can help some of you to your satisfaction.
For those of you that race your vehicles. First the 2.5 Duretec does have a ?windage tray?, so you are on equal ground with the Cobra in that essence. It is simply a piece of sheet metal that mounts under the crankshaft which prevents the crank from ?stirring? up the oil in the pan. Its primary objective is to reduce oil foaming and resistance caused by the crank rotating in the oil. It won?t though prevent oil starvation. The best resolution to that is a baffled oil pan or a dry sump. These are both very costly and are not needed in a daily driver or for that matter your typical weekend passionate drives. There is certainly no reason to worry about driving you vehicle day to day, this simply will not be an issue. But that?s why if you plan on racing a vehicle which accounts for
almost all production vehicles you will need a baffled oil pan. This is precisely why the 2000 Cobra R which was designed for racing has a specially made, baffled, Canton oil pan. What I can do for interested parties here is look into any alternatives for the Contour. As soon as I get some info I will post it here for the group. Next as far as the differential is concerned, we were aware of an issue in the past. The engineer?s resolution was a hardened gear set, and a TSB. Again with the hard truth, Ford is not going to retrofit your Contours with a Quaife LSD. If you plan or racing a vehicle you need to appropriately out fit it. This is the same answer I would give someone if you had a, for example sake, 94 Cobra for drag racing. I would recommend a 31 spline 8.8 over the stock 28 spline. Does this mean the 28 spline is a bad design? Absolutely not, that just means in a particular use you may need to customize the vehicle to handle the added stress of that particular use. In the case of the Cobra 28 splines, they would be fine for daily driving or weekend AX, but go drag racing an add slicks and the probability goes up for axle damage. Anyone interested in particular parts should call Vadim Federovsky at the Sho Shop. We have provided them with some support, for example the project car he currently has was part of our effort to help promote aftermarket parts. Obviously, Vadim has done a great job promoting the SVT Contour and we are grateful. Also I would like to add the normal warning, any time you modify your vehicle you can potentially void your warranty. If the added components are directly a cause of the parts failure Ford won?t warranty it.
Now lets talk about some stuff that?s a little more fun to talk about. It appears that many of you would like to see Ford produce an equal car to the SVT Contour for you to transition into. Like the Mondeo etc. I couldn?t agree more. But unfortunately we at SVT have no control what Ford overall produces. In the simplest way I can explain it is we look at what Ford mainstream is producing and select the vehicles that best fit SVT. In the 2002 model year that happened to be the Focus. I know this vehicle doesn?t fit everyone?s needs in the forum. But I have been getting the same kinds of enthusiastic begging from the Focus fanatics since its arrival in 2000, that there needs to be an SVT version of the Focus. One of the most difficult things to do is predict the future, but that?s what we have to do. For instance development starts now for vehicles 4 years out. That?s 2006-7!
Also, let me reiterate that we would love to continue to offer a similar vehicle. I know this is hard to believe but I can?t stress it enough, we didn?t want to see the SVT Contour go. The head of SVT still has his 99. With all of the vehicles that Tom could have he has an SVT Contour. Hopefully that helps everyone understand that we
are looking out for owners of this type of vehicle. It just depends on what available from Ford.
I can understand some people wanting the items we are offering in the future, like the premium service and the new features of the 2002 SVT Focus. Who wouldn?t? We try to improve the vehicles every year, and these are prime examples. The 2001 vehicles get the added service functions, because we felt it was the right direction to go. I don?t think anyone would disagree with that. But it is just as unreasonable to make it retroactive, as it would to give a ?00 Lightning owner the ?01 Lightning?s 20 extra hp. Would I love to do that? You bet. Does it make business sense? Not really. I hope I don?t anger anyone more I?m just being as open and as honest as I can be. At least the communication link is here and we can continue to talk openly.
Lastly, I want to stress if you are having an individual service concern e-mail me as much information as you have and I will get someone to help you out.
Thanks everyone
I?m sure I missed something
Troy
